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South Africans are standing up – in black – to crime… as seen in these photos and videos from #BlackMonday, as citizens mourn together – wearing black – in memory of all those who have died in violent crimes, including farmers. The suggestion to wear black today was made by a devastated farm manager on Tuesday after Joubert Conradie was murdered on his farm near Stellenbosch in the latest spate of farm murder attacks to haunt the country. 70 people have died in farm attacks since the start of the year. Every day an average of 52 people are murdered. South Africans have had enough…

Gatherings are being held around the country. In Vereeniging, the R59 highway has been blocked by trucks and cars. Similar scenes are being seen around Gauteng, near Pretoria; in Bloemfontein in the Free State and in Klapmuts, near Stellenbosch, in the Western Cape, where Conradie was killed.

Louwrens Kniep, organiser of Pretoria’s go-slow, told Jacarandafm News that this is “not only for all the farmers, this is for all the people of South Africa that lost people due to violent crime“.

Source: FB/Jacques Hough

Some hope the Government will listen and take the murders seriously. Others hope the world will listen and intervene. And others hope South Africans will stand in solidarity and make the country safer together.

Australian news report, March 2017. Although some South Africans feel the world has abandoned them and is ignoring the farm murders, both UK and Australian newspapers have reported on murders this year.

Writing on the Boere in Noord group, Carina Swartz said that for all those who are negative, she wishes they could feel what she is feeling this morning – “die gevoel van samehorigheid en saam staan hier kan geen woorde beskryf nie!!!” (“the feeling here of solidarity and standing together is indescribable”)